I won't be your doll

Chapter 6

Zhong Lei had just been injected with tranquilizers, so how could he hear him scream? Seeing no response, Yu Kai was about to push Zhong Lei a few times to make him scream harder when he suddenly felt a burning pain in his ear, as if it had been clamped tightly by tweezers. He whirled around and saw a beautiful girl with wide, almond-shaped eyes, one slender hand gripping his ear, the other on her hip, her fiery gaze fixed on his neck, sending a chill down his spine.

"Ouch...it hurts! Li Xue, what did I do wrong? Why are you torturing me like this?" Yu Kai winced in pain.

"Hmph!" Li Xue released her delicate hand, then crossed her arms again, and said softly:

"The doctor just gave Leizi a sedative injection, and he just fell asleep. And you come here to cause trouble? Do you have a death wish?!"

After saying that, he glared at Yu Kai, which made Yu Kai feel even less imposing. Coupled with his guilty conscience, poor Yu Kai not only got beaten but also had to apologize.

"I was wrong, Sister Xue! I promise I won't make the same mistake again. I will definitely reform myself, start anew, become a better person, strive for excellence, and work hard to learn scientific and cultural knowledge so that I can contribute to the modernization of our country in the future..."

"Alright! Stop being so cheeky!" Li Xue raised her hand to stop her. "I really can't stand you and Lei Zi. Did you two grow up being so cheeky together? Luckily, he's down right now. If he were still standing, I would have gone crazy all over again."

Yu Kai chuckled, his two cute little tiger teeth flashing in the sunlight, as if celebrating a victory. But the chuckle was fleeting, and he immediately became serious.

"Is Lei Zi alright?"

"No, the doctor said everything is normal. She was just frightened and needs to rest well, otherwise it could easily lead to schizophrenia."

"Oh! That puts my mind at ease." With that, Yu Kai walked to a nearby hospital bed, lay down, and closed his eyes.

"I need to get some sleep. I can't take the toss and turn last night..." Yu Kai mumbled in his sleep, drifting off into a sweet dream, and soon he was talking non-stop.

Li Xue pouted helplessly and sat down by Zhong Lei's bedside again.

She glanced at her watch; afternoon classes were probably almost over. Should she go home or stay? Li Xue hesitated. She had only taken one day off to go home and pick up some things, but after returning to school, she heard about Zhong Lei's accident and rushed back. Now, the deadline for returning to school was fast approaching. If she didn't go back, she would definitely get a demerit, but if she went back, she was worried about Lei Zi. What should she do? Li Xue seemed stumped.

Her brows furrowed for a moment, then suddenly, a fleeting, barely perceptible smile appeared on her lips.

She walked up to Yu Kai again, pinched his ear hard once more, and pulled it sharply. Yu Kai woke up with a scream. After groggily opening his eyes, he saw a handsome face, which immediately woke him up.

"What are you going to do now?" Yu Kai asked nervously.

This time, Li Xue became incredibly alluring:

"Kai, my leave is up, so I have to go back to school. I'll leave Lei to you, okay?" Then came another alluring laugh.

Yu Kai was so amused by the laughter that he felt like he was about to burst into tears.

"Fine, fine. Whatever you say! If anything happens to Lei Zi, I'll pay with my life!"

"Haha! You said it yourself! I'm off!"

After saying that, he picked up his backpack, waved to the still-sleeping Zhong Lei, and then disappeared through the door. Only a sleepy-eyed Yu Kai and a deeply asleep Zhong Lei remained.

Yu Kai looked at the sleeping Zhong Lei with envy, then quickly yawned and lay down to sleep as well.

Chapter Three: The First Appearance of a Strange Dream (Part Two)

II

An ancient house stands majestically in the night, with a bright moon, like a jade plate, hanging on its eaves.

The house was shrouded in smoke, and all the lights were out, leaving only a white curtain that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere to conceal the ancient house.

Zhong Lei put his foot down in the yard, and had only taken two steps—

Suddenly, a series of urgent bangings on the door shattered the silence of the night.

"Open the door! Open the door!"

A man's voice roared.

Zhong Lei was startled and turned around to stare at the door with wide eyes. The astonishment he had just felt hadn't allowed him to close his gaping mouth—and now it was even wider. What he saw at the door was a group of burly men. Even in the dim light of the night, their menacing aura spread undisguisedly in the darkness.

The owner of the house was an old man. He was a light sleeper, and this startled him awake even faster. Confused and disoriented, he slowly put on his clothes, staggered from the main room to the door, and laboriously pulled open the latch. As soon as the door opened, a rough hand shoved him to the ground, and he was cursed at.

"You old bastard, taking so long to open the door, do you want to die?!" Zhong Lei suddenly felt that this sentence sounded familiar, but he couldn't remember it for a moment.

The person who entered the courtyard with those words was a scarred-faced man with a scar running diagonally from his forehead to the corner of his mouth, a scar that exuded an evil aura.

Immediately afterwards, a group of tall, burly men rushed in. They were all dressed in black night clothes, all looked fierce and menacing, and all treated the old man as if he didn't exist, as did Zhong Lei (some of them even walked right through Zhong Lei, who was startled and quickly retreated to the corner of the wall).

Without a word, everyone began moving things outside. Boxes were overturned, cabinets were knocked over, and valuable jars and pots were piled up outside. The scarred man seemed to be the leader; he shouted orders at the few people in the yard to get to work, arrogantly and resolutely disregarding the old man.

A moment later, Scarface shouted at the bandits:

"I'm going outside to keep watch for you bastards. You guys better hurry up and get the job done!"

The old man watched this scene silently. He understood his current predicament; he had encountered bandits. The thing he had worried about for so long had actually come true. He didn't know whether he should cheer or... The family business passed down from his ancestors had been destroyed in his hands. This large house was where he had lived for most of his life—the walls where his cries as a newborn had once echoed; the hearty laughter of the clansmen during his first birthday celebration; his deceased father who had stood in the middle of the courtyard, sighing deeply because of his son's disobedience; the red veil and tiny feet of his first wife at his coming-of-age ceremony; the joy of becoming a father for the first time when their first son was born; the nightmarish night after the Japanese invaders came; the beam where his wife hanged herself after being violated by the Japanese. All those people, events, and things that were now vivid in his mind or flooded his heart made the old man feel sad, and a desolate mood unconsciously filled his entire heart.

The old man stood sighing through the gap in the screen in front of the door. His stillness contrasted sharply with the noisy crowd around him, a scene reminiscent of a dialogue between two eras. The old era trembled in fear at the roar of the new era, the old landlord, heartbroken yet powerless amidst the rampant destruction of the new era, the old landlord shivering without cotton trousers, the old landlord coughing incessantly while rubbing his aching back—his hunched figure suddenly struck Zhong Lei's heart like a branding iron frozen in ice, followed by a bone-chilling cold that seeped into his very bones…

Zhong Lei wanted to pat the old landlord on the shoulder and offer his greeting, but before he could even extend his hand, two streams of hot tears welled up in his eyes, accompanied by a stinging sensation in his nose. Suddenly, as if remembering something, Zhong Lei opened his mouth wide again—it was a premonition, someone was about to leave this world!

Given the current situation, it seems that only the old landlord is likely to die. The poor man is like a mouse cornered by a cat, his sunken eyes devoid of vitality, deep wrinkles like knife cuts covering the corners of his eyes, and his aged lips trembling slightly.

Just then, a burly man jumped into the courtyard carrying a pair of embroidered shoes, shouting:

"Brothers! Look! This old pervert actually put this thing in front of his pillow. I heard he's a pervert, and it seems it's true!"

As he spoke, he forcefully threw the embroidered shoes into a pile of junk. A guy next to him was pouring oil on them, as if he was going to burn them.

After the embroidered shoes appeared, the old landlord's eyes suddenly flashed with a strange light. His eyes were no longer dry, but seemed to suddenly be burning with raging fire. He almost pounced on the pile of junk and tightly grabbed the embroidered shoes.

The burly man rushed over angrily, slapped her across the face, and then started punching and kicking her.

"You shameless old bastard! I hate perverts the most, and you're an old one! I'll beat you to death today!"

However, the old man's thin body remained motionless, and the embroidered shoes lay steadily in his arms.

Just then, Scarface entered the courtyard and, upon seeing the beating, exclaimed in alarm:

"Damn it! Who told you to hit them?! I already told you bastards to leave them alive before I came! You all ignored me?! Damn it!"

He cursed and swore as he ran over to help the old man, a far cry from the thug who had shoved him when he first came in. Zhong Lei was puzzled and wished he could ask him what was going on.

The surrounding bandits, however, seemed to have gotten used to it. Ever since the second-in-command was hit by a poisoned dart during the shootout that day, he had become so strange, his expression changing faster than a child's! The bandits had all grown accustomed to it.

Scarface helped the old man up and brushed the dust off his clothes. The old man's surprised expression still held fear, as well as a hint of hatred.

Suddenly, a column of blood shot into the sky, and a human head flew into the air, drawing a beautiful parabola before landing. It rolled a few times and came to a stop, revealing a sinister-looking scar!

Chapter Three: The First Appearance of a Strange Dream (Part Three)

3

"Three"

"Lei Zi! Lei Zi! What's wrong? Wake up!"

Zhong Lei struggled to open his eyes, and the old man's figure gradually disappeared from his sight, replaced by Yu Kai's wide-eyed stare.

"Ha! You're still alive! Not bad!"

Upon hearing this, Zhong Lei became furious.

"You little spendthrift! I'll teach you a lesson!" He started to get up, but Yu Kai grabbed him and held him down.

"Lei Zi, alright, stop fooling around. The fact that you still have the urge to hit me means you're still healthy, which puts my mind at ease, haha!" After saying that, his face darkened again. "Do you know what happened to you just now?"

Zhong Lei smiled silently and shook his head.

"I don't know, I was still dreaming before you woke me up."

"You almost scared me to death, you know? I woke up and saw you trembling, your eyes tightly closed, with beads of sweat on your forehead, and you were muttering something. I only heard one sentence clearly, something like 'Don't hit me anymore'."

Zhong Lei nodded, his face as pale as a sheet, and continued:

"I did dream that someone was beaten."

He paused, then added, "Some people died too." The words lingered on his lips several times before he uttered them. He didn't want to talk about what happened in his dream, for no particular reason.

“Oh, you know what? Bi Bin was also sent to this hospital. He… he went to the morgue.” She lowered her head after saying that.

Zhong Lei was not surprised.

"Did I already expect it? Did he really strangle himself?"

Yu Kai shook his head painfully, as if recalling these things caused him great distress.

"No, he didn't die after he fainted in front of us. When you and I ran to check on Lin Wei, he got up and stumbled to the toilet behind the dormitory building. This is what the classmates who were guarding there told me."

"What did he do in the toilet?" Zhong Lei wondered.

Yu Kai took a slow breath.

"I told you not to be nervous. He went in and never came out again. Two hours have passed, and you've already been carried back to the duty room, but Bi Bin still hasn't come out. The students waiting outside got a little scared, so someone suggested going in to check. Then they all went into the restroom, but there was no one there."

Yu Kai paused again,

"Several people panicked and didn't know what to do. Some wanted to run, while others nervously paced around in circles. At this moment, one extremely nervous student went to urinate. When he flushed, he found the water was red. He then screamed and ran away. It turned out that the others in the toilet went over to see what was happening and were also frightened and ran back to the duty room. The hospital ambulance had already arrived, and Secretary Zhang and Teacher Zhu from the Youth League Committee also came over. They lifted you and Lin Wei into the ambulance. The doctors, who were on their second call, kept looking at us with strange eyes, making us feel very uncomfortable."

He finished speaking and smiled helplessly.

"Then, the doctor wouldn't let me get in the car, so I stayed behind. Only Secretary Zhang personally went to the hospital with you, this is the one."

Yu Kai pointed to the floor, then picked up a bottle of mineral water from the bedside table and took a sip.

"After the ambulance left, we gathered a dozen or so people, led by Teacher Zhu who was on duty, and went to the restroom in a large group. With more people around, we became much braver, and surprisingly, we weren't afraid at all."

After saying that, he smiled again.

"When we got to the restroom, we found the urinal was still full of blood. Mr. Zhu frowned, and the students were all very nervous, whispering among themselves. Then Mr. Zhu turned to me and asked, 'Are you sure Bi Bin didn't come out of this restroom after entering? There are front and back doors here!' Before I could answer, someone behind me said, 'We're sure! Because there were people waiting at both doors!' Mr. Zhu nodded, his face seeming even more gloomy. Then, he looked up at the top of the urinal." "Yu Kai, go find a ladder, quick!" I shouted. I called two classmates and we ran back to the duty room to get the ladder. We set it up on the tank, and then Teacher Zhu climbed up himself. As he looked into the tank, he suddenly stumbled and fell. Luckily, he hadn't climbed very high, and we caught him in time. Before he even regained his balance, he mumbled incoherently, "Quick, call the police! Call 110! Quick!" Immediately, some classmates ran out, and the rest of us were so nervous we couldn't say a word.

Yu Kai's expression turned serious.

"I asked three classmates to take the trembling Teacher Zhu back to the duty room. Filled with immense curiosity, I climbed the ladder myself, but I regretted it as soon as I got up there." He finished, frowning and swallowing hard. "Guess what I saw?"

Before Zhong Lei could answer,

“I saw Bi Bin, Bi Bin was crumpled up and stuffed tightly in the water tank. I think his limbs must have been broken, and blood kept gushing from his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth… What I can’t forget most is those bloodshot eyes…” Yu Kai couldn’t continue.

Zhong Lei reached out and placed his hand on Yu Kai's shoulder, patting him reassuringly. At the same time, a chill rose from the soles of his feet, instantly enveloping his entire body.